Sufi Ritual

The Parallel Universe

Ian Richard Netton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781136834042
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This study reveals the world of Sufi ritual with particular reference to two major Sufi orders. It examines the ritual and practices of these orders and surveys their organisation and hierarchy, initiation ceremonies, and aspects of their liturgy such as dhikr (litany) and sama (mystical concert). Comparisons are made with the five pillars of Islam (arkan), and the Sufi rituals, together with the arkan, are examined from the perspective of theology, phenomenology, anthropology and semiotics. The work concludes with an examination of the Sufi in the context of alienation. This is a major work which highlights the importance of Sufi ritual and locates it within the broader domain of the Islamic world.

1
Introduction

There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seem’d – and then no more of THEE and Me.¹

Even after the achievement of the scholar-ṣūfī Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) in ‘largely removing the tension between Ṣūfism and the “Islamic sciences’”,² diverse other Muslim scholars have continued to view Ṣūfism with the deepest suspicion.³ The

ulamā° have frequently pitted themselves against the ṣūfī shaykhs and pirs, each group often seeking religious control, power and authority by virtue of bookish or gnostic learning.⁴ Professor Michael Gilsenan, while doing research on the ṣūfī mystical brotherhoods in Egypt between 1964 and 1966 was assured by shaykhs at the Azhar University in Cairo ‘that these brotherhoods had nothing to do with Islam at all and that [he] was not only wasting [his] time but giving a false impression of what the true religion is.’⁵ With others, suspicion has given way to a bemused, and perhaps surface, tolerance. As Ronald Eyre put it in his book On the Long Search: ‘The orthodox Muslim community, after a great scholar arose to allay their more extravagant fears [surely a reference to al-Ghazālī?], appear to have accepted the solitary quest, but only as an extension of community worship. And they are alert for signs of morbid inwardness in those who undertake it.’⁶

The suspicion from mainstream Islam comes in many forms as do the ṣūfī orders themselves. In the course of Islamic history ṣūfīs have appeared in nearly every corner of the globe where the message of Islam has been preached; indeed, they were often responsible for bringing that message to what had been non-Islamic lands, in the first place.

This book surveys different manifestations of the ritual aspects of Ṣūfism, taking two major Orders as case studies. While the state of Ṣūfism in contemporary Britain is not its primary focus, there will be some references to the British scene by way of illustration. And since ritual is the principal topos, ṣūfī spirituality in its diverse aspects such as states (a

wāl) and stations (maqāmāt),⁷ while occasionally touched upon, will not be explored in great depth or detail. It will be instructive to note in passing the manifold sources of alienation, catalysts for change and reasons for the reinforcement of spiritual identity.

The phenomenon of religious change in response to a new culture is by no means a new one. Indeed, as George Chryssides stresses, ‘when a religion migrates from one culture to another, quite radical changes often occur’⁸ He cites the example of the move of Buddhism to areas like China, Tibet and Japan where the religion assumed a rather different form from traditional Theravada Buddhism and he asks: ‘Did the first Tibetan Buddhists fail to notice the plethora of deities, esoteric rituals and supernatural beings which were introduced into Buddhism’s world view?’⁹ Chryssides identifies three potentially problematic areas where adaptation may be required of adherents of an immigrant religion: dependence on the native population, ritual practice and discrimination.¹⁰ (It is, of course, the second area that will concern us most in this book). The outcome may be apostasy, adaptation or accommodation, or, finally, an insistence ‘on retaining [a] fully distinctive identify.’¹¹ Chryssides characterises the last response as ‘renewed vigour’.¹² Such remarks are of interest both when we consider the role of Islam within an ‘alien’ society and the role of Ṣūfism within the society of Islam.

The role of Islam in Britain, its impact on British society and the problems of culture-clash which have sometimes manifested themselves, have all been dealt with in a variety of publications.¹³ Such matters will not be covered here again in any depth. What is worth stressing, however, is that, while the practice of Sūfism in the Islamic world is a minority activity within a community or communities which still adhere to the same basic faith system, the practice of ṢĪfism in a state like Britain is a minority activity within a minority religion.¹⁴ Not only can there be a culture-clash between Islam and other religions, but there is what I will call a ‘counter-clash’ within Islam itself, between diverse articulations of that faith, some of them mutually hostile.

There is, then, scope for feelings of the profoundest alienation¹⁵ and isolation resulting from disparagement by a local Muslim populace¹⁶ and a largely uncomprehending non-Muslim milieu. Such feelings have the potential to bond ṣūfī communities more closely together but also to pressurise them into changing, reforming or even diverging from the classical rituals and structures of their origins.

Some of the adherents of Islam in Britain in the very late twentieth century exhibited attitudes akin to those cited earlier by Gilsenan and Eyre. Reviewing Cyril Glassé’s Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam,¹⁷ Dr Hesham El-Essawy had this to say:

Like many converts from the excessively materialistic society in the West, Mr Glassé seems more attracted to the excessively spiritual mysticism of Sufism. In fact, the book reads more like a Who’s Who of the Sufi world than anything else. I have a problem with Sufism: one can enjoy the trip, but the higher you fly, the more detached you get from the ground.¹⁸

Dr El-Essawy goes on to stress that ‘the thing is that Islam is really a political, religious and socio-economic system whose business is not just the establishment of physical or spiritual rituals, but rather worship through living a good life/¹⁹ This, indeed, reflects more closely the ideal of Muslims the world over whose path or goal, by and large, is not a ṣūfī quest ending in mystical union with the Divine. And the majority of Muslims in Britain, as elsewhere, are not ṣūfīs.

Many Muslims settled in the UK, however, often reluctantly share the sense of detachment or alienation characteristic of, and beloved by, the ṣūfī²⁰, feelings which are neither chosen nor enjoyed but which arise from a variety of circumstances over which the Muslim may have little or no control. He may find that in British society he or she is an involuntary practitioner of ‘solitude in a crowd’.²¹ And while for the ṣūfī, as for a Plotinus or an Augustine, alienation is a ‘state in which contemplation and ecstasy are identical’ and one where the ‘human soul or spirit is elevated and reaches its goal which is the union with the divinity’,²² it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the average alienated Muslim youth in Britain today does not share in such a high-flown perception of his state. The ṣūfī may willingly deviate from mainstream Muslim society and glory in the resulting alienation, but the youths of a minority religion such as Islam in the United Kingdom today may rather perceive their alienation as oppressive.²³ Thus he or she may become westernised but find that they are not accepted by the culture to which they aspire and become alienated both fro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Mapping the Sacred 1: The Niʿmatullāhī Order
• 3 Mapping the Sacred 2: The Naqshbandī Order
• 4 Unveiling the Sacred 1: The Five Arkān
• 5 Unveiling the Sacred 2: The Parallel Universe of Ṣūfī Ritual
• 6 The Alienated Ṣūfī?
• Bibliography of Works Cited
• Index